Desarrollo de biorreactores controlados aplicables al estudio de cultivos de microorganismos de interés comercial

Abstract

A new functional low cost bioreactor prototype was developed for cell growth. It was developed and incorporated an optical measurement system that is not in the market, whose purpose is to monitor the growth of microorganism cultures automatically. Three functional prototypes were obtained, it were tested: resistance to sterilization processes, stability of the optical measurement system, triplicate growth tests of a model organism (Escherichia coli MC4100) and an undetermined species of the Chlorella genus. The new containers showed resistance to sterilization processes by autoclaving, physical integrity in at least 12 cycles. The optical reading system was built with very low cost electronic components, the measurements of the developed sensor showed to be very stable presenting very small vibrations (between 0.5% and 0.9%). The calibration curves from serial dilutions for the optical measurement sensor were adjusted to a linear trend with correlation coefficients of 0.9911 minimum. The new bioreactors were able to replicate the necessary conditions for the cultivation of the biological model and at the same time the sensor developed and incorporated allowed to follow the growth in a non-invasive way, dispensing with classical sampling. In turn, the growth exhibited by the bacterial population is adjusted in form and proportion to the growths reported in the literature for these organisms. It was demonstrated in the tests developed with this new equipment that the use of laboratory instruments can be dispensed with.